


A Good Man

by DestielsDestiny



Series: The Someone 'Verse [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Character Death, Crossover, Families of Choice, Fire, Friendship/Love, Gen, Graphic Description, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Redemption, Time Travel, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 15:09:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4353728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctor wakes up as the world is burning. </p>
<p>In which the Doctor wakes up from a chameleon arch reversal induced headache realizing he’s regenerated and has been living as a human on 17th century earth, and somehow he’s been the first prime minister of France, an at best ambiguously bad man, for years. This is how he figures out how to be a good man again. It starts and ends with Athos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Man

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I own nothing.  
> Warning: This fic contains somewhat graphic descriptions of fire, blood, and gore. Mentions of suicide attempts.

Athos was the closest. It is as simple as that. Proximity-not destiny, love, irony, perversity, or destiny. That isn’t to say the Doctor didn’t make a choice that night, smoke curling around a life that isn’t really his, isn’t really real at all. There is always a choice, so people say. It’s generally true, he finds. 

So, it was a choice. Not a choice between people, however, not a choice between the Inseparables or a random stranger or Treville-because Rassilion knows his human alter ego might have been ruthless and cold as a dead pike, but he had loved Treville. No, it was more a choice between action and inaction. Between saving none but himself, or just saving someone. 

He chose a middle route. He chose Athos. 

The Doctor’s done many spectacular, agonizing things in his life, things he regrets with the deep bitterness only a thousand years gone man can feel. Few of those things have been harder than those smoke and pain hazy moments, drawn out to the nth pinnacle of agony, screams bouncing through the air, choking him as surely as the smoke would have, if he hadn’t recently rediscovered his respiratory bypass system. Athos was wet and slippery, with what he prefers not to think about, and he resisted in every way possible, thrashing like a demon, holding onto any surface he could find purchase on, regardless of how flame encrusted it was. Most of their clothes are gone by the time they reach safety, and a good deal of Athos’ skin is following-the smell of burning everything cloying even into the secure environment beyond blue faux-wood doors. 

Athos finally falls into unconsciousness around the moment the Doctor needs to release him to enter the vortex. It’s the only remotely convenient thing that’s happened in recent years, and the Doctor would have laughed at the absurdity if he had any energy left for anything remotely frivolous. Then however, all he can focus on is the ringing in his ears, the agonized names repeating over and over like the litany is still going on, not silenced by unconsciousness. 

The Doctor regrets many of the things he’s done in his life, but no matter how hard he tries, how much he knows he should have just left the man to burn, how much kinder it would have been to just let him die with his family, how much of a mercy it would have been to let fate run its course, how wrong it was to interfere with that fixed point, he can never quite bring himself to regret saving Athos from the flames that day. 

\--

 

The Doctor finds Clara on her wedding day. Repetition heavy in the air, he waits quietly and casually against a tree in the church yard, betting correctly that Clara would be the rare individual who manages to slip unnoticed out of her own picture perfect wedding reception, in a wedding dress. And Rasillion if there isn’t a moment where he misses Donna so fiercely Clara almost seems to be ginger for a fleeting moment before she gasps and then she’s in his arms. 

It’s been over half a lifetime for the Doctor, and just over seven years for Clara, but for a moment nothing’s changed. The Doctor squeezes tight once, somehow a warmer person than he was before Richelieu, and isn’t that irony for you. 

Then they let go, and Clara doesn’t cry because it’s her wedding and for all she’s missed the Doctor fiercely, she seems to have found moving on, being left behind, better than most. And what does it say about him that this is more than a pattern by now. 

The Doctor doesn’t offer to take her with him, because wedding dress and Athos is still unconscious in the Tardis, and Clara doesn’t mention it, because Danny, and they part much as they met, sad but undepressingly still whole and content. 

And the Doctor watches her go back to her life without guilt, although not without some regret, because the Doctor never told Clara about the Chameleon Arch, and she hadn’t precisely been travelling with him at the time, but they know each other well enough to know that the Doctor chose this, made it seven years when it could just as easily have been seven seconds. 

Made it goodbye when it could just have easily been hello. 

\--

The Doctor doesn’t dream of Treville often, but every time he wakes a ghostly echo of Jean seems to permeate the air for just a moment, and it’s enough to cause even less sleep than he used to get. 

Still, waking up from a particularly vivid dream of Jean ravaging across his thin chest to find a single folded sheet of paper outside his door and the painfully real glimpse of Athos’ soft limp disappearing back into the room he never leaves, is a surprise, partly because when did the 17th century start producing telepaths capable of dream sharing with a time lord and a Tardis, but mostly because Athos left his room for the first time of his own accord, to search for something besides non-existent alcohol stashes. 

Then he unfolds the paper. 

Somehow, Jean’s eyes staring out at him in pastel accurate shades makes the acrid smell of burning world that’s never quite faded recede just a little. 

He sleeps a little better after that. 

\--

“Where are we?” It’s not the question the Doctor was expecting, for all its logical practicality that is the epitome of Athos in a crisis. Not that they’re in a crisis really, the Doctor hasn’t let Athos out of his sight since the man’s second more serious suicide attempt nearly three months earlier, which means they’d spent most of those months buried in the depths of the zero room, which for some inexplicable reason resembles a library at the moment, complete with cozy fireside hearth and comfy old world chairs.

It’s not the question the Doctor was expecting, partly because the only question he was ever expecting was the one he was dreading, the one he hated because he knew the answer, the one that began with “why” and ended in nothing but more heartbreak, and possibly reapers. 

More than that though, at this point in time, the Doctor hadn’t really been expecting any sort of question at all. It had been nearly ten months since he’d pulled Athos out of his century literally kicking and screaming, ten months since either of them saw the outside world, ten months since Athos uttered a single word. 

Oh, there’d been plenty of sounds, unending keening in the early days, devolving into fits of screaming and harsh sobbing that lasted so long the Doctor ran out of sedatives and was forced to resort to more practical means, the grand result of which had been discovering 17th century French ex-Comtes had amazingly strong latent telepathic capabilities, resulting in the Doctor being nearly as exhausted as Athos most of the time, and not much else. 

Over a month in which they’d both nearly never left the Medbay had given way to days spent slumped outside Athos’ locked door, listening as intently as possibly for the slightest stirring, weeks of carefully not glancing over his shoulder at the withdrawn shadow dogging his every move, months of forcing Athos to remain in his constant company when doing things his way had only led to blood and tears and not much else. 

In all that, the whole not talking thing seemed rather trivial by compare, especially when the Doctor really has no idea why he’s even doing this, besides the fact he most definitely has the time, and he still hasn’t figured out what he was doing in France in the first place. 

Still, Clara was rather correct in calling him rather rude and rather Scottish, and he never quite stops talking the entire ten months through, mostly just for the sound rather than any actual hope of results, although he tries everything from calling him Olives to speaking only in Gallifreyan to imitating Nazgul to making disparaging comments about the lineage of anyone he ever met of Athos’ past acquaintance to attempt to provoke a reaction after the man’s first attempt to open his wrist veins with a fork. 

He switches to discussing himself after the second attempt, and a lot about the weather. 

He’s in the middle of a rather splendid monologue about the rain on New Vasilli when Athos finally adds his voice to the tranquil placidness of their Tardis existence. 

The Doctor drops the entire container of marmalade onto the toast he was preparing to attempt to force on Athos, which somehow doesn’t get him out of answering the question. 

He’s halfway through explaining the intricacies of space time before he realizes Athos is watching him intently, rather than the table top. 

He’s got through half of the history of Gallifrey before it registers that the toast has vanished, complete with marmalade. 

He’s been calling Athos nothing but Ollie for two years before he realizes that the whole non-stop talking thing might have not been just for his own sanity after all. 

\--

 

“Doctor!” The voice was cracked beyond mere disuse, a whispering hoarseness that belied the smoke damage not even the Doctor was ever able to fully heal. As much as he might still be trying. Although frankly they do most of their communicating in the Doctor’s head these days. Which would be great, except they’ve managed to find danger on the only planet in the whole universe with telepathic dampening grass.

Time lords have reflexes over eleven times faster than humans, the Doctor’s faster still, but he has always suspected those reflexes had nothing on the musketeers.

Looks like he wasn’t wrong, he reflected dimly, the ionized taste of artificial dirt biting against his tongue, his cheek squashed roughly under the cool leather of the old jacket the Doctor gave Athos on his first trip out of the Tardis, all of a week ago, the jacket that had prompted tears to cascade down Athos’ cheeks into the fleecy material covering the Doctor’s shoulder, the leather warm and pliable between them. 

Athos hadn’t taken it off since. A fact which just saved his life, the Doctor forever stumped at how effective animal hide is as armour, never more so than when it prevented an old style arrow shaped projectile from shredding quite all of Athos aorta, giving the Doctor just enough time to drag them both into the Tardis and slam the doors shut, and didn’t that feel familiar, Athos’ hot blood pulsing down his long fingers all the way into the vortex. 

Athos knows more about regeneration than most time lords ever did, courtesy of the Doctor’s monologuing period. He took the bullet anyway, without hesitation. 

And for all that the Doctor balled Athos out for nearly all of the twenty hours it took to stitch him back together, only roughly two of which he was even remotely conscious for, for all that he literally tied Athos to him for nearly a week after tying him to the bed for three, part of him is also grateful. Because he understands, just a bit. He’s a little attached to this face too. 

It’s a predictably long amount of time before the Doctor wonders if really all Athos ever needed at all was someone to protect. Someone to save. 

\--

 

“Ollie, pass me that spanner. No, the other one!” They never spoke French. The Doctor hadn’t even been aware that Athos spoke English at first, and had spoken French for that first monologue mostly out of forgetful habit more than thoughtfulness. 

He got three words in before he was rather rudely interrupted by a spoon flying in the general direction of his head. It would have missed by a mile if the slight lunge he has to make to snatch it out of the air was anything to judge. Athos is back to his position of contemplating the wall by the time that the Doctor glances back a second later, so the Doctor merely shrugged absently and switched seamlessly to English. No more spoons were forth coming, so English it remained. 

It’s the most spontaneous movement he’d gotten out of Athos since he first woke up though, so the Doctor counts it as a win. 

Spanish nearly gets him strangled, but at least Athos leaves the bed that time. 

Calling him Athos had resulted in the kitchen being turned upside down in a frenzied search for an alcohol stash the Doctor is pretty sure the Tardis rather conveniently lost somewhere the moment Athos came aboard in the first place, but attempting to tell Athos that just makes his movements more frenzied. The Doctor’s so caught up in the wonder of seeing Athos actually moving of his own accord that it takes him far longer than he’d like to admit to notice the blood. 

The Doctor hadn’t realized the Tardis has any glass in her kitchen, but apparently Athos managed to find and smash some in the few minutes since he’d returned to the land of the animate. 

Subduing Athos enough to actually tend to his rather heavily bleeding arm is rather like attempting to tame a rabid tiger, but probably hours later, when the Doctor’s firmly tucking Athos back into his infirmary bed, arms snuggly bandaged and sedatives safely on board, a hand shoots out with equal firmness and catches the fleecy edge of the Doctor’s hoodie. For some reason, wearing things without hoods and extra thickness just feels wrong these days. 

“My name is Olivier.” The Doctor blinks slowly at the vivid but pain dulled blue eyes that meet his own. 

“Well hello there sleeping beauty!” The Doctor knows he lost pretty much all of Richelieu’s diplomacy skills in his reversion from human to time lord physiology, but Athos was never very fond of Armand, so maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. 

The slight beginnings of something that might once have been a smile that slowly forms in Athos’ eyes is more than enough of an answer for either of them. 

The spanner slapping against his palm jerks the Doctor back into their present, Athos’ slightly disgruntled huff doing little to conceal the edges of a smirk tugging at the man’s clean shaven lips. Beards had never been something they’d discussed, and that’s the way it would always stay, if the Doctor had anything to do with it. 

“Oi, Twisty, come and help me with this!” The Doctor had refrained from calling Athos much of anything for nearly a month after the kitchen incident, a month in which Athos latched repeatedly onto the Doctor’s wrist every time he tried to leave after his nightly check in until the Doctor had simply given up and nestled onto the covers beside Athos. 

How they went from there to the Doctor reading Athos a bedtime story every night, he’s never quite sure, but they’re halfway through Oliver Twist before Athos thinks to question the ritual, a query to which the Doctor rather scornfully responds, “Quiet Ollie, we’re at the best part!” 

The name just sort of sticks after that. So does the reading. 

\--

 

It’s a backwater market on an utterly insignificant planet in a minusculey unimportant system on the edge of a rather boring and small galaxy at some indiscriminate point in the future. Two figures sit outside a small and utterly ubiquitous café, watching passing traffic with the distinctly studied air of ones who have nowhere particular they need to be in the foreseeable future. 

Suddenly, the younger figure starts abruptly, a member of the planet’s generic small purplish rodent population having chosen that moment to make a passing bid for the traveler’s lunch remains, landing on a gauntleted wrist in the process. 

The creature quivers gently, and for a moment the universe seems to pause for breath. 

The burst of laughter is broken enough to shake the fingers of the man’s companion across the expanse of the table, although predictably it does nothing to startle the determined rodent creature. 

And if the older greying figure opposite raises a lithe hand slightly discreetly to his cheek to dash a momentary speck of moisture from his cheek, well, the planet predictably has a permanent 50% chance of precipitation weather warning. 

And if the planet has one less small purplish sort of mammal the next day, well nobody ever really bothers to count something so utterly ordinary anyway.


End file.
